May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. (George Carim)
. . . good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. (Albert Camus)
The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it. (Albert Einstein)
As I sat having coffee-on-the-porch in the early light of dawn this morning, I heard geese on a nearby lake, and wondered if they were feeling the same touch of fall in the air that I did. The shimmer of starlight was fading, and light slowly creeping into the eastern sky. In the midst of this peace, I found myself paradoxically thinking about evil, and trembling a bit at the memory of someone I once knew, an individual who behaved in a manner that we sometimes dismiss lightly as “catty.” (Although, cat-lover that I am, this seems unjust to cats). The sly comment meant in “fun,” but calculated to leave a barb in one’s heart; telling tales and twisting the truth in a manner that pits people against each other; leaving trails of suspicion and distrust one for another in her wake; one who seemingly lacks a capacity to love, and seems determined to remove love and compassion from the world, but oh so subtly that it can hardly be detected.
Evil is a hard concept for me to think about, to understand, to admit exists, especially evil not of a grossly abominable or egregious nature, evil behavior that is more subtle in nature, hard to detect. Having spent all of my professional life working with emotional disorders, I have mostly dismissed the notion of evil, preferring to think instead of personality dysfunction growing out of severe pain. One of the worst of those dysfunctions is the individual who suffers from — and here it would be easy to distance myself by putting a psychological label on behavior whose consequences are only pain and distress for others. Since I am retired, maybe I no longer need to do that. But I find myself lacking other descriptive words, so I will tell you a story instead about The Hawk in Swan’s Clothing:
Once upon a time there was a Hawk who wore Swan’s clothing. She wrapped herself in the soft, satiny gray feathers of the finest Swan cloak, and lived on the grayest of lakes, so that she could hardly be seen swimming upon it. Only when she raised her wings in flight or attack could her true brown colors be seen. By then, it was often too late for her unlucky victims.
It is not known why a hawk would choose to live on a lake, and was occasion for great wonderment when the story would be told among the Swans on the cool crisp of an autumn evening Telling. It was rumored that the Hawk in Swan’s clothing had been tossed out of the nest at a very young age by her own kind, and so bore a great and terrible rage toward all.
First-time Swan mothers-to-be were warned to be alert and wary and especially mindful of their chicks when the brilliant sunshine would turn the lake to a dazzling, blinding sheet of gold, for then it would be especially hard to see this hawk who pretended to be a swan. And then all the Swan Mothers would tremble in mingled fear and anger and anticipation of attack by such an evil one.
It was sometimes asked by the young, naive, or unusually compassionate Swan whether or not something could or should be done to help this evil one, for she was surely a victim even though she also turned others into victims. Perhaps she could be made to return to her own kind, and thus find a home there. Perhaps she should be sent to the Haven of the Seven Healing Swans. Perhaps she should be penned up, given food and space, but never let free to prey upon others. Perhaps . . .
But here the Swan Fathers would raise their wings in an alarming arc, the trembling of the Swan Mothers’ feathers would increase, and the Wisest among them all was heard to say. “Hawks are hawks and Swans are swans. A Hawk in full array is a fine and Awe-ful thing to behold, just as is a Swan. But a Hawk who chooses to pretend to be a Swan is a dung that cannot be turned into fine grain. The only recourse against such a one is to be ever Alert.”
And the Swans’ eyes would all sweep the still calm surface of the gray lake.
Swans are perhaps wiser than we. The only recourse against such a one is to be ever Alert speaks to the vital importance of our having healthy boundaries; of being careful of “too much misplaced empathy,” of exercising our capacity for seeing it like it is, no matter how much it may be distasteful to us or even horrify us.
A frequent expression that my grandmother used was “everyone walks according to the Light as they see it,” and for a long time, I think I misinterpreted what she meant. In trying not to be judgmental or critical or blaming, I ended up being too accepting, even denying reality at times, especially in those grey areas where the behavior of others is not so clear-cut. It was almost as if I experienced difficulty in discerning the difference between what is life-giving, and what is destructive. And as a result I sometimes ended up enabling others’ destructive or cruel behavior.
But what I know now is that what we don’t know or refuse to see or acknowledge about others can hurt us. Making a distinction between those behaviors, attitudes, or thoughts that are productive and relationship and life enhancing, and those that are cruel or destructive or hard on relationships is essential. And just as essential, is then following through with setting the necessary boundaries to foster and protect the well-being of yourself and others.
Now I know that the key part of my grandmother’s saying was “walks in The Light.”